Iconoclast, please...????

mazo kid

Teak, I was going thru some of my "stuff" the other day, trying to get all my old cartridges in one place. I came across a round I had forgotten I had: copper cased, "H" headstamped, appears to be a 50-70 pistol round. I know rimfire 50-70 cartridges were produced in the early years for the Rolling Block pistol; were there any inside primed cases made for this round? Is this a rimfire round? Anyone?? Thanks for any enlightenment. Emery

"Well done is better than well said"
Ben Franklin

Iconoclast

Emery, there were several rimfire .50 rounds, both handgun and short rifle cartridges. I would need dimensions to tell you what this is. It was loaded by Winchester, for starters.

mazo kid

Thanks for the response. I have taken some dimensions as close as I could determine. They don't seem to match up with any in my "Cart. of the World" 7th edition: Rim-.640, Base-.558, Case length- 1.030 OAL- 1.548, bullet-.510(?). Hope this helps. Thanks again for the help, not only for me, but for the many others with questions. Emery

"Well done is better than well said"
Ben Franklin

Iconoclast

Emery, these old rimfires have some incredible tolerances by today's standards - no SAAMI in the 1870s! There are several rounds where the range of dimensions on known specimens would accomodate those provided. Most, however, are quite rare, and given the "H" headstamp, most likely what you have there is one of two Spencer rounds. If you can send or post a pic, that would pretty well confirm it, but I would tentatively ID it as the .56-50 although the bullet is usually more like .515" . . . it could be the .56-52, also. Most of the .56-50 rounds have some sort of indent pattern roughly .25" below the case mouth to retain the bullet with a very faint taper from rim to case mouth. The .56-52 is pretty straight, except it has a *very* faint bottleneck beginning about 3/8" below case mouth. The bullet profiles tend to be different, also, with the .56-50 having more of an ogive. This is, as I'm sure you know, a rifle round used in the Civil War (as were the .56-52 and the .56-56). But there were a few .50 rimfire pistol rounds, also, notably for the .50 Remington single shot pistol - two flavors, Army and Navy versions and a relatively rare reduced load made for the middies at Annapolis on the latter, also. And then there are about 15 darn scarce to very darn rare other .50" (+/-) rimfire loads smaller than the .50-70 (many of them prototypes in the process of developing that round).

No biggie on the help. We all contribute in our areas of knowledge - for example, some guy out in the upper midwest has been known to throw out some informative answers on black powder firearms, as I recall. [;)]

mazo kid

Thanks Teak, I don't know how to post photos on this site so have sent a couple to you via email. Emery

"Well done is better than well said"
Ben Franklin

Iconoclast

Emery, below is the edited composite photo. What you have here is a Winchester .56-50 Spencer made roughly in the decade of 1885 - 1895 (I can explain how I dated it, but I suspect arcane comments about headstamps would put folks to sleep). The case has been cleaned rather vigorously, largely obscuring the retaining cannelure - I put an outline around it for emphasis. Not especially valuable, especially after the cleaning - at best a $5 round in this condition.






I didn't pick up on it until just now, but you said "I know rimfire 50-70 cartridges were produced in the early years for the Rolling Block pistol . . . ." This is incorrect. The .50-70 was never used in any handgun - at least not by our military in the 1800s. There were two flavors of the .50 pistol round (with a very scarce variation as I noted in a prior reply). The image below is of the .50 Army version (which was not loaded in rimfire), which has a slight bottleneck; the Navy version is visually a straight case which tapers about .040" from just above the rim to the case mouth; didn't happen to have a scan of that one available to post, but you'll get the idea. Note that the two images are not on the same scale; the pistol round is about 75% the size of the Spencer in real life and the Spencer is about half the size of the .50-70 . . . so there is a substantial difference between the pistol round and the .50-70.

mazo kid

WOW! You've got sharp eyes; I'm looking at the round and I didn't see that cannelure until you pointed it out. I made a boo-boo when I said "50-70 cartridge" for the RB pistol, I knew better as I have cut down 50-70 brass to make a few pistol rounds and they are SHORT. Another strange thing: I have Trapdoor and RB 50-70 rifles, a Sharps carbine and a RB pistol, all in 50 caliber. EACH will chamber the full length 50-70 rifle round. Any thoughts as to why the chambers were cut so long in the "shorter" arms? Thanks again for your expertise in explaining what the mystery round is. Emery

"Well done is better than well said"
Ben Franklin

Iconoclast

Not so much sharp eyes as knowing what to look for and where to look for it. I'm sure any number of guys here could point out the differences (which would totally escape me) between variations of Trapdoor Springfields, for example, just by glancing at a photo.

I know nearly zero about the chambering of the weapons you list, and I've not run a dimensional check, but my surmise is that the .50-70 is likely just a tad smaller in body and bullet than the .56-50 Spencer and .50 USN Remington RB Pistol. Again, ammo and chambers were nowhere near as standardized or consistent in the 1860s and 70s as they are today - or even in the last twenty years of that century. It is my understanding that there were some "Kentucky windage" allowances in both firearms and ammo in the early years of breech loaders, which varied between - and even within - makers. Furthermore, ".50 Caliber" was not standardized at all in this period. Think of the differences, for example, in the nominal bullet diameter of the various .40 caliber cartridges of the BP era when manufacturing methods had improved enormously: a range of roughly .401 - .408 . . . the actual ranges on ".50 caliber" were typically this much or more just within what were nominally the same cartridge / chamber, to say nothing of between *different* ones!

mazo kid

Thanks much, Teak, I really appreciate the help you have given me and others. If I've got a question, I put it on GB and 9 times out of 10 I will get an answer. Emery

"Well done is better than well said"
Ben Franklin